


In the Details

by audramh



Category: Outlander (TV) RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:40:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27415882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audramh/pseuds/audramh
Summary: 1x11 ("The Devil's Mark") contains the most intense, fully-clothed, realistic sex scene in TV history.Since it first aired in 2015, it has sparked endless debate:Did (or didn't) they?Everything has a back story.As the saying goes, the devil is in the details.
Relationships: Caitriona Balfe & Sam Heughan, Caitriona Balfe/Sam Heughan
Comments: 30
Kudos: 77





	In the Details

**Author's Note:**

> *** WARNING: SHIPPERY CONTENT ***  
> If that's not your thing, do be a lamb and keep it to yourself.  
> ⬇️  
> If that's not enough of a deterrent, COMMENTS ARE BEING MODERATED. Any and all hatefulness will never see the light of day on my fic... but you will be put on blast on Tumblr for all to see. Choose wisely.  
> ⬇️  
> To those of you who *want* to read a short story about two people who adore each other both on- and off-screen: you're my kind of people. I wrote this for us, and I hope you enjoy!  
> ⬇️  
> Thanks to the best beta this side of Craigh na Dun: @albatross1013. ❤

It was late on a Saturday afternoon at my flat. The light came through the living room windows at a lazy angle and cast lines across the sofa blanket under which we both lay.

His whole body was wrapped around mine.  
An arm across my waist kept me from sliding to the floor. For extra insurance, one very solid leg was looped around mine. If this were anyone else, any past boyfriend, I'd be carefully planning my escape. I would have thought him far too clingy.

Not Sam.

With Sam it felt different. Comforting. Right. Judging by the bottle-and-a-half of red wine we'd drained, it also felt like a good idea.

We had started out channel surfing, found nothing remarkable, and settled on a nature program about wildlife of the Galapagos Islands. As the bottles steadily emptied, we played a round of Desert Island.

"Ok, Balfie: you're stranded on an island all alone. What three things have you brought?" He kissed my earlobe, squeezed me, and waited for my list.

"Just three?"

"Mmm hmm," he murmured against my cheek.

"All right. Let me see. An armful of books, for one..."

"Nope! You're already way over three. No way."

I tilted my face back toward his and raised a finger in protest. "Excuse me. I'm stuck on an island all alone for who knows how long. I'll be bringing a load of books, and they count as one item. Thank you."

Satisfied with my logic, I turned to face the television screen just in time to see a huge palm tree. "Oh! Second item: a hammer for cracking open coconuts. And, lastly... top-of-the-line insect repellent for what I imagine are Jurassic-sized midges."

I was feeling pretty good about my chances of survival when his stifled laughter began to shake my frame.

"What?" I demanded.

"Balfie, you wouldn't last a week."

"How do you figure?"

He whispered: "No fire."

[Damn]

"All right, smart arse, let's hear your three."

Ticking off each item with a finger, he wasted no time at all. "Machete, tarp, waterproof matches."

[For fuck's sake]

"Why are you good at everything?" I asked, elbowing him in the ribs.

Lips still aligned with my ear, he whispered: "Ye didna seem tae mind it last night, did ye, lass?"

[OH!MYGOD!JAMIE]

I shivered ever so slightly and my breath caught in my chest. He had to have felt it and decided to use it to his advantage. His hand began a slow and steady ascent up my thigh as I lay immobilized and surrendered to it --

"Hey!" The hand stopped.

[What the - ]

"I just remembered: we have a certain fireside scene coming up," he said as his fingers drummed up excitement on my leg. "Care to rehearse?"

I looked at him in disbelief. "'Rehearse'?" I started to laugh. "God, Sam, if you want to get into my pants, just say it."

He levelled me directly with his blue eyes. "I want to get into your pants." He raised his eyebrows twice in quick succession. "But not yet. You need rehearsal." He sat up.

[Excuse me?]

"Wait right there. I do not. What are you implying, that I'm some cold fish?" 

He laced his large hand through mine and squeezed. "Balfie, that's the last thing I'd ever imply about you. Quite the opposite, actually."

[That's better.]

He continued. "But think about it: Claire is sound asleep when Jamie gets... handsy. And when I touch you, you light up like a Roman candle. You know very well it's one of the reasons I can't keep my hands off of you. But it won't help you sell the scene. Therefore, you need rehearsal."

I hadn't thought about the need to stifle my body's natural reaction to his touch. Damn him, he was right. This might be more complicated than I thought.

"Fine, you workaholic, you talked me into it. Where, then? On the floor?"

He looked around the room and over toward the window. "Do you have a long skirt? I have an idea."

___________________________

I rummaged through my dresser but came up empty. These were all too short to be of use. I glanced at the closet. Aha! It had been quite a while since I put on a maxi skirt, but a few were likely hanging in the back. 

I rejected them in turn: too lightweight, too satiny, too grunge. Behind those, a viable candidate. Basic brown and wool. I hadn't worn that thing in years.

Before rejoining Sam, I decided to put a white satin half-slip underneath it, mostly as a stand-in for Claire's shift, but also as a buffer between the scratchy wool and my bare legs.

The tank top I had on would have to do, and surely it didn't matter anyway:

I was about to get fingered by Jamie Fraser.

______________________________

I came back to an entirely different room. The television was off, the curtains drawn nearly to a close. The only natural light was a sliver of pale dusk that came in through the right side. He had created a terrain of sorts from pillows and draped them with a large blanket. In the foreground was an ersatz campfire of lit candles: some in jars, some stand-alone pillars, and several votives.

"Hi," he said in a quiet voice.

"Hi. This looks amazing," I said just as quietly. There had been a shift in the room's energy with the change in lighting, and it was clear we both felt what it had become: a small and intimate cocoon for the two of us.

"One more thing," he said with his iPhone in hand. "Sound." As he hit PLAY, I heard a steadily crackling fire, complete with crickets in the distance.

[He's thought of everything]

"YouTube. Virtual campfire," he offered with a shrug. He set down his phone and held out his hand. "All that's missing now is you."

I clasped his hand and let him pull me close. He enveloped me in tenderness. I nestled against his neck, breathing in the warm and wonderful, earthy scent of his skin.

His sure hands traveled from my waist to my back, fanned out to caress my naked arms and shoulders, and came to rest at my nape. I moved so I could face him. I looked up into the blue eyes of the man I loved, now black in the ambient light of our scene.

[just kiss me please kiss me]

Tranquility, not passion, prevailed, and he merely pressed a kiss to my forehead.

"Come wi' me, lass. Let's get ye sleepy."

A tingle shot up my spine.

He led me to the pillow-and-blanket terrain under the window and descended with me.

I sank in. It was a bit lumpy, but that made it easier to prop my right leg slightly up, which I knew would be necessary from having read the script. He lay down silently beside me, back against the wall, and waited for me to stop fidgeting. Once I had, he wrapped an arm around my rib cage. His other arm he folded and used as a head rest. I closed my eyes.

"Comfy?" His mouth was at my ear, and I turned toward him instinctively.

"Mmm, yes," I answered blindly, even though the urge to look at him was nearly unbearable.

"Shhh, mo chridhe, dinna speak. Just rest," came Jamie's admonishing whisper.

[GOOD!LORD!]

Jamie's voice was my cue that the scene had undeniably begun. He'd never materialized in my flat before, and I certainly didn't want him to regret his visit. I quickly became Claire: I had just beaten a charge of witchcraft and escaped the stake. I'd told Jamie the entire bizarre truth of how I came to be here, and he believed me. I'm now safe in his embrace and warmed by the fire he made for us. I can rest.

I felt him slowing his breathing, and I followed suit with mine. I slowed it even further when he nuzzled into my hair. Further still when he stroked my arm lovingly and cooed an "mmmm" and "hmmm" into my ear at a volume so low I felt it more as vibration than sound.

A deep breath in.  
A long breath out.  
"Hmmmm."   
In.  
Out.  
"Mmmmm."

Eyes still closed, I was so entranced by his rhythm that my eyelids were too heavy to even accidentally flutter. He'd made feigning sleep feel effortless.

We lay like this for another minute, maybe two. Then he made his move.

I could feel him shift his weight off his folded arm, using it instead to prop himself up. The arm he'd gently draped across me withdrew and brought my right hand slowly to his lips. Naturally, I wasn't wearing Claire's wedding band, but he kissed my ring finger as reverently as if I were.

He turned his attention to my face. Long moments passed as he traced my hairline with a touch as light as air. Cheekbone. Lips. Jawline. Jamie was earnestly memorizing Claire's face to carry him through the rest of his life without her in it.

It was beautiful. I couldn't see it, but I didn't need to. I knew it was beautiful.

Still, Jamie being a young man in his prime, there were other features he wanted to commit to memory too: I felt his fingertips glide along the exposed tops of my breasts.

[Stay asleep, stay asleep]

And then his hand was gone. I had just enough time for that to register before I felt his breath against my lips. He ghosted them with his own, tantalizingly slowly and barely there. I knew there was desire in his eyes. In the light of the candles, his pupils would be blown wide. The flames would be dancing across his face, seductively tracing the bridge of his nose and casting shadows this way and that as he moved. God, how I wanted to open my eyelids.

[Just for a sec-]

Right then, I felt his hand materialize near the hem of my skirt and tug it just once, in a long and smooth motion, upward. It puddled in a soft fwoosh! where it landed mid-thigh. Jamie's face never left mine, his lips continuing their gentle micro-assault against my own.

The palm of his hand made contact first with my calf, fingers trailing passively behind, as it inched up my leg. Just past the knee his fingers took the lead in anticipation of their reward at the top of my thigh.

And then he reached it, exhaled loudly, and stopped.

"Cut!"

My eyes popped open and I flared my hands out emphatically: "What the fuck?"

Jamie answered me with a light double-pat against my cotton-clad crotch. "Mo chridhe, I canna touch ye with this strange... rigging... in the way. What've ye go' on?"

I stifled a smile the best I could and answered as Claire might: "They're knickers. From the future, and very practical, I might add."

"But..."

"Jamie. At any moment we could be spotted out here. Do you seriously think I'd risk my reputation by going..." (here my eyes got wide) "...commando?"

"Och. Ye wee minx, yer plannin' tae fake it then. Fine. Close yer eyes, Sassenach."

I did just that.

"Action!" He palmed me over the cotton. His hand was so large and warm, it did take my breath away, which made it easier to convincingly come awake. I blinked twice and let his face come into focus.

His fingers swept left and right. Lower, then back up. I pressed back against them, looking for friction but failing, utterly foiled by the barrier between us. Unable to anchor his hand inside me, he reached down and wedged his wrist under my arse and began to rock me up, down, up, down, then in the loop of a figure of eight.

I knew my line, of course, but hadn't quite expected to mean it this much... I grabbed his t-shirt where his lapels would be: "No; I want you inside me."

Jamie shook his head. "No. No, mo nighean donn." I let go of him and sank back into the pillow terrain, genuinely frustrated to the point that I wasn't acting. "I want tae watch ye."

I tried to keep up my end of the scene: making it look like my husband was drawing waves of pleasure out of me with his fingers. I bucked. I arched my back. Winced.

"Cut! And then she climaxes, they kiss, and fade to black."

He propped himself up on an elbow and looked at me with a knitted brow, thinking intently.

"No good?," I asked.

"I mean, I think we did the best we could. It just felt mechanical. Kind of forced. And you, Balfie, were quiet as a mouse."

"Oh my God, are you serious? I was?!"

"Not a sound." His disappointment at having to deliver this news transformed into determination as he stared at my lips. In remaining silent, it seemed I'd thrown down the gauntlet. He did like a challenge.

He leaned down and kissed me, long and deep, as he cupped my cheek. It was needy and earnest, full-on and forceful. It both flattened my lips and tugged them to him. It also managed to pull sing-songy notes and sighs out of me. Whenever it seemed to ebb, he simply came back for more. I reached up and slid a hand through his soft copper curls as his mouth claimed me over and over. He was winding me up and I loved it.

He broke the kiss with a wry smile.

"We did it your way. Now can we try mine?"

_______________________________

Having cast off the offending "rigging", I was back into position for Take Two, as was Sam. Something was bothering me though, and he sensed it.

"What is it?" He leaned over me and smoothed my mussed hair. It felt delicious.

"Well, Jamie's in his early twenties. He hasn't been sexually active for very long at all. And here he is, planning to send her back to her time. Forever. This is his goodbye."

"Yeah?"

"So... this scene is a departure from the book.  
Would he really forgo his own pleasure? I'm just not sure it rings true, that's all."

He smiled. "See, to me it makes perfect sense. Think of it this way: Jamie is a man of honour. First and foremost, that's who he is. He's just learned that he married another man's wife, from another time no less, and he knows he can't keep her. She doesn't belong to him, doesn't belong with him. And now that he knows, he has to do the right thing. He can't full-on commit adultery with her... and what if he got her pregnant? What he can do is watch her respond to his love one last time and commit it to memory forever." He shrugged with one shoulder. "That's how I see it."

I reached up to him and held his face. "God, that's beautiful." I kissed him and nuzzled his nose. "Where have you been all my life?"

"Waiting for you, Balfie." He ran a finger down the tip of my nose, then kissed it. "Waiting for you. Close your eyes."

______________________________

Jamie's breath was back against my face. His lips were nipping mine. His hand was mid-thigh again, moving steadily upward. At the exact same spot as before, his palm and fingers swapped places. Fingers first, palm trailing behind. 

I held perfectly still, just as before, but this time I had butterflies. This time, there would be contact. 

His fingers floated from the uppermost part of my thigh and came to rest gently on my naked sex. He moaned audibly, approvingly. His breaths became shallow and more rapid as he brushed his lips and nose with mine, gently ushering me into consciousness. At the same time, his fingers gently parted me open, and I exhaled all the air I'd been holding out through my nose at once. I felt my lungs completely empty, and I took a sharp breath in as two fingertips dipped between the folds of my sex. 

From how easily they glided up and down along my slit, I knew I was coating him. I heard my every breath. Now his other hand was cradling the crown of my head, lovingly tousling my hair. I'd had enough of the darkness; I let my brows knit and my eyelids flutter open. His face. I could finally see his face.

[Oh fuck, he's actually studying me]

We locked eyes as his fingers continued to explore. One fingertip delved in, and I felt my center draw inward. I clenched around it. 

[More, more]

The hand at my hair found its way under my tank and teased a nipple. A single pinch. I was squirming now. His hand left my breast and brushed my face. I followed it with my mouth and a turn of my head toward him. A second finger was poised and ready.

[Say the line]

I pulled myself up by fisting his shirt. "No, I want you inside me!" Claire's voice came out of me sounding every bit as desperate as I felt. 

He shook his head decisively as he answered: "No." I sank down and nearly whined at his rebuff. "No, mo nighean donn. I want tae watch ye."

He smiled as he inserted a second finger. As with the first, I clenched around both of them now and rocked my hips as if to draw them in farther.

Jamie's voice whispered in my ear: "God, Sassenach. Yer a dirty lass, aren't ye? Mmm hmm. Ye are, and I ken all too well ye love how it feels." 

[Oh God oh]

Both fingers pumping into me now. "Look at ye, naughtily fuckin' back against my fingers as if I'd given ye my cock."

Fingers fucking me, thumb at my clit. I arched my back, drew my knees up, and heard myself pant and whine.

[Oh so good it's so fucking good]

"Lass, the next time we do this, I want ye tae recall the filthy things ye heard me say in yer pretty wee ear. I willna be able to say them then, but ye'll see them all o'er my face. Ye'll ken I've seen ye desperately beg for my cock to fill ye. When ye didna get it, ye were willing tae fuck anythin' I gave ye. Dirty, naughty lass."

[so close oh God yes]

His face stayed with mine: he meticulously followed every head turn, every chin tuck, every open-mouthed movement. Took every sound that came out of me into his mouth as I clutched his shirt for strength.

He nudged me with his nose. "Do it."

[FuckfuckFUCK]

Everything merged together: the candlelight on his face, the filth he'd whispered, the intensity of his eyes on mine, the fact that we'd be filmed doing this very thing, very soon. I tensed around his fingers, pressed hard against his thumb, and came on cue.

Finally, mercifully, he closed the minute distance between us and kissed me so long and wet and deep it made my toes curl.

I vaguely heard him whisper: "And cut."

I released my grip on his shirt and collapsed in a daze onto the pillow terrain, willing my heartbeat to slow the hell down so I could catch my breath. I looked at him, now propped up on one arm and looking quite pleased with himself. The cheeky bugger was smiling: "Wanna watch a movie?"

I burst out laughing, locked eyes with him, and in answer slid my palm along the length of him through his jeans.

"Good. Neither do I." He leaned in with a teasing sweep of his tongue across my mouth. "Back in a sec."

______________________________

"Holy shit, Cait." 

In the few minutes he'd been gone, I'd dismantled the pillow terrain into just a blanket on the floor, around which I'd arranged the candles at regularly-spaced intervals. I also just happened to be completely naked, laying on my stomach with my legs bent at the knees and my ankles crossed in the air.

He was holding a TV tray, which, by the look on his face, was in no way secure. I motioned for him to set it down. He did, albeit not smoothly, and swallowed hard.

"What'dya bring?"

He had already unzipped and was now stepping out of his jeans with his eyes glued to my arse. Sensing a void in the air, he found his way up to my eyes. "Huh?"

With great difficulty, I was able to take my eyes off the well-defined cannon in his Under Armours and managed to gesture toward the tray. "Wine?"

"Ohh. Yeah. There's wine. Um, it's just the dregs of the second bottle from earlier, but I did manage to get two good pours out of it. Oh, and whisky and a bottled water. That all right? Didn't know what you'd want."

"Ya done good." I rose to my knees, reached over, and chose red wine.

He was still looking at me hungrily. "I thought I'd want more wine too, but... fuck me: coming back to find you like this? I need a whisky." He took a glass, raised it meekly mid-air, seemed to come into contact with an unseen electric current, and shuddered. "Sláinte."

Wordlessly, we drank a little. When I had had my fill, I placed my glass back on the tray. With my eyes steadily on him, I settled in. He watched me slink down on the blanket and tuck my arms and legs beneath me. I parted my knees and raised my arse. When I wiggled it in invitation, he was very clearly entranced.

"Jesus."

Suddenly aware of the drink in his hand, he downed the rest of his whisky and carelessly cast the glass onto the carpet. Watching it roll aimlessly was actually quite flattering.

Then he was behind me, moving a couple candles out of the way. He sank down to his knees and curled forward around my form. His boxer briefs were flush with my skin, rock-hard cock nestled in the split of my arse. He slid his hands up the front of my thighs, moved them in tandem up my stomach, and stopped at my breasts. He groaned at the feel of them in his large hands. He squeezed, rolled my nipples, and withdrew. Next, I felt his stubble, lips, and tongue moving down the small of my back and heard myself making hums of approval.

Then I said the first words I had in a while: "I need you, I need you."

[I don't even care how whiny I sound]

His voice dropped an octave. "Oh, I need you too." There was a flurry of activity behind me that left me breathlessly anticipating being filled by him at any second. "Don't move."

[Not on your life]

Before I registered what he was doing, I felt his forearms hook around my hips from below. There was a slight rush of air as he slipped under me and pulled my swollen sex down to his face. I gasped and immediately began panting as he completely overtook me with his mouth.

[OH!GOD]

I was still wet from my earlier climax, very sensitive to touch, and somewhat squiffy on red wine. Second orgasm: imminent.

I have no idea how he did it but he seemed to be everywhere all at once. The broad tip of his nose continually teased my clit. His flat tongue licked me up and down and then entered me, rhythmically working me on the inside. His lips glided over every pulsing tissue his tongue explored. When he began to move from left to right, left to right, with his mouth fully open against me, I felt it: that keening, high-pitched tickle-itch that only I could feel and that could only mean one thing.

[GodGodGod]

It was going to be so intense I tried pulling away from him, but he wouldn't have it. He fought to keep me where I was, growling all the while. The dam broke. I heard a very muffled "yes" from between my legs, followed by the filthiest sounds I've ever heard as he savoured what he'd done to me.

I fell forward onto my arms, unable to feel my face beyond a constant tingling. I had hyperventilated without even realizing it.

It hadn't escaped his careful attentions, though. He was kneeling beside me now with a large, comforting hand on my back. "It's all right. Breathe through your nose. Nice and deep." His hand swept up and down and established a rhythm to sync with my breathing. I focused on that until the feeling crept back into my lips and cheeks and I could think. "Babe. Babe. Open your eyes, love. Here." I did, and he handed me the water.

[I love love love this man]

I gulped as much as my ragged breathing would allow, handed him the bottle, and collapsed. Smiling.

"Are you all right?" He rubbed my back.

Still breathing hard. "Absolutely. We're not done here." I winked at him: "I still need you."

I didn't need to say it twice. Within seconds, he had shucked his briefs, reached for a condom on the tray that I hadn't even noticed, ripped it open, and rolled it on. He moved in behind me, tested me unnecessarily, lined himself up, and pushed in with barely-controlled fervor and a low Scottish noise rumbling in his throat.

A strangled groan of relief came out of me, too, at finally being filled by him. That first welcome intrusion has always been my favorite, but never as much as with him.

"I can't hold back, Cait..." He meant it, and it was a good thing, too; I didn't want him to.

Bracing himself with hands at my hip flexors, he drove home again and again at a pace so fast and so hard it sounded like a series of punishing slaps.

 _slap_ "Mmm."  
 _slap_ "Unh."  
 _slap_ "Cait."  
 _slap_ "Aah."  
 _slap_ "Ohh."  
 _slap_ "Fuck!'

He soon broke out of rhythm and let himself go on a forward thrust as I pressed back onto him with equal force. I tensed around him, each constriction eliciting a noise. A moan. A syllable. He curled around my back, breathing heavily. He was starting to relax, but I could still feel his cock throbbing with aftershocks.

"The things you do to me." He kissed my back tenderly.

With that, he patted my arse gently, withdrew, and collapsed on shaky legs into a sated form beside me. He looked at me, breathless and silly, smiling and trying to come down. I scooted to him and tucked in against his chest, pressing kisses anywhere they would land: "I love you."

More kisses. He wrapped his arms around me and drew a deep breath. "I love you too. But - "

I moved to look him in the eye, a bit shocked.

"But... as to the issue of the rigging. Are we agreed, then? On the day we film?"

I nodded, smiling, as we both said in unison: "Commando."


End file.
